The invention reengineers the metal case mass of a typical General Purpose (GP) bomb or Unitary Penetrating (UP) warhead into open linear cells, which are contained in the case volume. The cells can be of any geometry, such as hexagons, circles, trapezoids, etc, and may be twisted, segmented or rifled down the interior length of the bomb.
The practice of filling open linear cells with explosives began with the discovery of Linear Cellular Alloys, which were developed at Georgia Technical Institute in the 1990's. These materials did not have precise engineering tolerances and weren't used for warheads at that time. The Thin Unitary Multi-purpose Penetrator (THUMP) was developed by Air Force Research Laboratory using the principles of open linear cells but was not effective due to poor manufacturing processing, and general lack of quality control.
In an effort to overcome the deficiencies of these previous methods, the applicant machined open linear cells via by Electrical Discharge Milling (EDM) into a billet of steel, filled the warhead with explosive and tested it in the field.
The range of qualities required or desired for this bomb includes the following:
Matching the impedance of the case with the impedance of the fuze well of the bomb.
A. Maintain 5% or less axial strain in the overall case structure.
B. Physical partitioning of chemical species in the bomb fills.
C. Easy alternative fuzing designs.
D. Stress bridging structure to enhance explosive survivability during penetration.
E. Controlled Fracture and blast.
F. Relatively low cost.
G. Straightforward manufacturing.
Other objects, aspects and advantages of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description of the invention.